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“Sometime later Samson fell in love with a woman from the Valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah.” (Judges 16:4)

God had a plan right from the beginning. He raised up a community of people, called them to be faithful to Him, and put them in a broken world to be a living example of what he was like. His first choice were the descendants of Abraham– the Israelites. One of them was a man named Samson– a hero, a man of great strength. From birth God had asked Samson to take the Nazirite vow. That meant he was never to touch a dead body. He was never to have his hair cut, and he was never to touch anything that came from grape, neither grape juice, or grape, or wine. By doing these three things, he would be totally different and unique, set apart to God; nut also to be an example to his neighbors, his fellow Israelites that said we have to be unique and different from our world.

What is really intriguing to me in that story is God then placed Samson in the Sorek Valley. Sorek is a very valuable kind of grape, a purple grape. God sent this man who was never to touch anything from the grape to Grapevine Valley. I think what God wanted was to say; Samson, it doesn’t make any sense for you to live out your faith in an isolated place. I am going to send you down to the broken world, the very place you are supposed to be unique from, to show them what my way looks like. Samson didn’t do all that well obviously. He fell in love with the Sorek Valley and a woman who lived there; but I think God calls us to the same place.

God wants a people who are faithful; who walk in commitment and godliness; but he wants a people who live where the broken world is. So, if you’ve been called today to Grapevine Valley, in the form of the school you attend, the university you go to or teach in, if its the business you work in, the place you go for your business convention; I pray you would be totally devoted, unlike Samson, to a righteous walk, so that in that place of brokenness, you can be a living witness of what God’s way looks like.